Late-night work in lab becomes a life-changing passion

LIU YI 28, a robotics teacher at the Youth Center in Beijing's Haidian district, is in charge of running the annual Beijing Student Robotic Intelligence Competition. Liu started high school at the Middle School Affiliated with Beijing Jiaotong University since 2002, andwas among the first students in China to have access to robotics education.

I fell for robotics in high school. I was pretty lucky that it provided robotics courses. It was the first high school to introduce such curricula in Beijing.

I was attracted immediately and joined the school's robotics club.

I became obsessed before the national robotics competition in 2004. My team made a creative humanoid, which required six months of work and three version updates. We were immersed in the lab for nearly a year.

On weekdays, I did not go home after school. Instead, I went straight to the lab and spent one to two hours on the robot. During weekends, there was nearly no weekend. I spent virtually every minute of my leisure time in the lab.

My teammate and I used Legos for the robot, which was 1.4 meters tall. When finally it was able to walk, I was impressed and excited.

We gained the national top award in the competition and I was admitted by Central China Normal University without sitting in gaokao

The robotics club had about 13 members then, and more than half of them are still involved in robotics education.

I studied computer science at university and returned to my high school as a science teacher after graduation. To further promote the competition, I joined the organizing team and started running the annual event.

Some of my teammates compete on their college team and, like many members of the robotics club from high school, continue to pursue their robot dreams.

In 2013, a team called Water from Beijing Information Science and Technology University won the RoboCup, an international robotic soccer festival, and made national news. Some members of Water were alumni from my high school.

Although some of my teammates have not continued with the program after high school, they still benefit from their robotics training. They have broader vision in college, especially in courses requiring strong operational abilities.

Liu Yi spoke with Luo Wangshu.